Dawn of a New Ninja PROLOGUE: Ink and Paper
by DawnNinja
Summary: When a girl from our world has the chance to start a new life in the world of Ninjago, she jumps at the opportunity. But her decision has unexpected consequences. Now, having brought a mysterious new villain into an unsuspecting world, can Dawn use her knowledge of Ninjago's canon to stop her? Or has her mere existence already changed too much? Ninjago OC insert. First fanfic!


**AN: Hello, and welcome to my first** **fanfiction! It's an OC insert of a LEGO cartoon for children that I will be playing 100% straight, so if that's not your thing then you probably won't enjoy this story. As this is my first fanfic, I will probably make some mistakes here and there, so any and all feedback is appreciated! I plan to have this be a multi-part series with one "book" for every season. No spoilers for season 8 please!**

 **Warnings for the story as a whole: existential themes, occasional violence/blood, some coarse language.**

 **Warnings for chapter 1: minor blood, very little content actually related to Ninjago (next chapter, I promise!)**

* * *

Dawn sure was a dumb kid.

It sounded like _such_ a good idea at the time. She could get a new start in a fictional world turned real, live out every child's fantasy and be a hero. But this? This was not in the fine print.

* * *

 _Dawn looked incredulously at the strange jet black haired woman before speaking. "Are you trying to tell me that you can go into any fictional world? Isn't that kind of... impossible? Or insane, maybe?" It was more of a statement than a question. After all, the claim was completely ridiculous. But the stranger only smiled sweetly._

" _How about some proof, then?" The woman said as she pulled a small book out of her handbag. It was a children's book about a small family of anthropomorphic cats. She opened to a random page while muttering a series of sounds that didn't seem like any sort of coherent language, reached her left hand toward the page and, to the utter shock of her viewer, it went right through it. "Hold this for me, sweetie." She said as she gently took Dawn's hand and rested the spine of the book in her palm, as if to prove that this was no smoke and mirrors magic trick. Her right hand went to join the left, which had disappeared up to the elbow inside the book, as she made a small noise of satisfaction, apparently having found what she was looking for. Dawn could only watch in awe as she pulled out a real, live, child-proportioned kitten wearing a little grass stained coat. The illustration of said kitten had disappeared from the pages of the book._

* * *

"Oh, be quiet, you." Said the dark haired woman as the two of them made their way through the damp cave they appeared in. "This is the only way to bring an actual person between realities. And it was no easy task! Have some gratitude!"

Dawn wanted to scream. Why would she feel grateful about _this_? She struggled weakly in the woman's arms, but all she got was a chuckle in response.

* * *

 _Dawn spent several minutes entranced by the fantastical kitten-child. She pet its head. It was real. That was real fur and real body heat. This stranger had, before her eyes, brought a living, breathing being from fiction to reality. Questions rushed through her head as the strange woman picked the kitten up by the scruff and gently placed it back into the book. The kitten disappeared, and its illustration returned to the book's pages as if it had never been gone._

" _Have you given any more thought to my offer?" The woman asked. Dawn collected her wits as best she could, which was quite the task as she had just had her entire definition of reality itself brought into question._

" _...Who are you, anyway? Why are you making me this offer in the first place?" She asked. The strange woman placed the book back into her bag and pulled out a DVD case. The title read 'LEGO Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitsu'._

" _You can call me the Storykeeper." She said. "And as for why? Well, I am quite fond of the world of this show, just as you are. Call me a child at heart, but as over the top these silly ninja and their adventures can be, there is just an irresistible sense of wonder in the scope of this imagined universe." She smiled an unreadable smile to herself. "However, I cannot go between realities on my own. The only way for me to go from one world to another is to deliver someone else to the world of their choice. Someone like you!"_

 _Dawn thought about this. She thought about all the classes she was failing, and the friends she hadn't had a real conversation with in over a month. Would this be the opportunity she needed to turn her life around? She thought about her family. Would they miss her? Would they even know what happened? She thought about the life she could have in Ninjago if she agreed. Would she fall into the same failures as her current, boring life? Or would she have a second chance in a world where magic was real, good always triumphed, and the impossible happened every day?_

" _Alright." She said. "I'll go with you."_

* * *

"I did what you asked me to, Dawn." Said the Storykeeper. "I brought you into the world you wanted to go to, and I gave you a new start in life. You even have a chance of inheriting an elemental power now! So what if there were consequences you didn't think about? That is certainly not my fault!"

Dawn let out a piercing, frustrated wail. _You could have told me,_ she thought angrily, even though she knew the Storykeeper wouldn't hear her _, that 'a new start in life' meant becoming a BABY._

Dawn continued to scream as they finally arrived at a small house built into the mouth of the cave. The Storykeeper gave an annoyed sigh. "Seriously, pipe down! You'll attract unwanted attention. This place is supposed to be secret." She said as she opened the door.

The house was tiny, wooden, and mostly bare with only a single room. On the back wall opposite from where they walked in there was another door with two windows on either side, sunlight streaming through them. In the back left corner there was a small kitchen with two counters, one against the back wall and the other parallel to it about eight feet in front making a square. A couple of chairs stood at the counter closest to them. A copper water pipe ran from the kitchen sink to the center of the left hand wall, where it then disappeared into the floor. Another pipe came up from the floor next to it and ran the rest of the wall's length in the opposite direction to the front left corner, which was sectioned off by two folding screens. Presumably there was some sort of bathroom there. To the right there was a bed with a crib next to it, and in the back left corner there was a writing desk that held a stack of yellowed papers, several bottles of ink, a couple of pens, and a currently unlit oil lantern.

"It's certainly not much," said the Storykeeper, "but it's hidden well enough that we won't be found." She walked over to the crib and tucked Dawn into it. "Besides," she said, "now that I've held up my end of the contract, I can finally stay in Ninjago permanently! So as soon as I can regain my full power and control this reality, we can live wherever we want!"

 _Seriously?_ Dawn thought angrily. _Not only do I have to be a baby, but I have to be raised by a generic villain who wants to control reality? Come ON!_ Dawn yelled in protest, but the Storykeeper had sat down at the writing desk and seemed to be ignoring her now. After a few minutes of this, Dawn's throat began to hurt, and her head felt heavy. Unable to do anything else, she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

 _The contract was short and simple, just a single sheet of paper that was mostly blank. 'By signing this paper, you agree to be brought into the world of your choosing to start a new life by the Storykeeper that gave this contract to you. Thusly, the Storykeeper will be allowed to reside in the world that you have been brought to.' Dawn hesitated. Was this really what she wanted? To abandon her current life and live in an entirely new world? Yes, it was. She wasn't happy in her current life, and she saw no way forward that would give her the life she wanted. A new start in a world where the impossible was possible and she could be a hero, that was what she wanted, and it was right there in front of her. Dawn signed her name._

 _Moments later, the still wet ink began to run. It flowed down the paper, more in than could possibly have been in her signature, and the Storykeeper cupped her hand under it, catching the pooling black liquid. The ink began to solidify and take the shape of a curved dagger in the Storykeeper's hand. Before Dawn could even blink, a white hot pain exploded in her chest and her world went dark. Suddenly, she felt as if she was somehow floating in the air and yet frozen in a solid block at the same time. She couldn't see, and yet she still was aware of her surroundings as if she could. The last thing she could remember was the image of her own body, face down in a pool of swirling black and red._


End file.
